More Than She Could Have Ever Asked
by SlthrngNbltyWrtnINnk
Summary: After Nagini attacked and bit Severus Snape, he laid at St. Mungo's hopsital for five years. His personal healer, Luna, is starting to lose hope until finally . . . Not SS/LL


"Stop moving so much. If you do that I won't be able to treat you. Hey where do you think you're going? Lay down! Healers! Healers! Help me! Hold this man down. Professor Snape! Stop it! I have to treat you! Settle down! I said hold him down!"

Luna Lovegood, respected healer, and ex-student of Severus Snape took a large handful of the thick green liquid. It seeped through her small hand, but she had just enough. As she rubbed it on Snape's bare chest, it melted water thin, and soaked right through his skin into his ribs, and then into the veins leading to his heart. Snape's screams where loud and unnerving. He fought the men holding him down, with surprising strength, but was unable to ward off all of them.

"Calm down. I know it hurts, but if you stop fighting and screaming, relief will come, as well as sleep. Just give it a minute. Calm down, Professor. It'll be okay with due time." She whispered to him as she looked into his eyes.

Snape's black eyes were open, alive, and screaming out in pain and fear. His breathing began to slow as he stopped fighting the men. Finally, his eyes closed and he fell into a deep sleep. Luna knew he wouldn't wake up for several days at the most, but the longer he stayed at St. Mungo's, the worse he became, and the more relief he needed.

Unfortunately, Luna knew that she could do no more than that. His mind was too far gone, too trapped in it's own darkness and insanity. After Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had manged to get Snape back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the second war, Snape had been quickly stabilized by Madam Pomfrey. He was then later been taken to St. Mungo's.

That was nearly five years ago. Whatever the snake, Nagini, had done to him was something that Luna, nor anybody else at St. Mungo's had ever seen before. Luna predicted nearly two years ago, that Snape would only get worse, until his mind would either reach full insanity, or until it killed him. Only, Luna wasn't ready to give up, yet. Part of her still hoped that the man, now known as a dignified hero, would somehow come through.

Luna study the pale man with a grim expression on her usually soft features. She knew that hoping, in this case, went against everything she had been taught, but she also knew that Snape had lived through too much, to give up on life now. Part of him still wanted to live, she just knew it. She just wish she knew how to help him.

Sweat poured from the pores on his body. His temperature had been unusually high, nearly 40 degrees Celsius. Luna covered him from the neck down with a thick wool blanket, in hopes that he would sweat out whatever poison was injected into his body when he was bit by Lord Voldemort's pet snake. That's all she could do, hope. Everybody had given up on him long ago, except her. She dedicated so much of her time, researching, watching, studying, hoping, and waiting, that people were beginning to look at her like she was crazy.

This wasn't the first time she received these kinds of looks, though. The majority of her Hogwarts life was filled with those looks. People looked at her like she was crazy, and they looked at Snape with fear. Maybe it was this reason that she so desperately wanted to save him. Maybe it was simple because Snape's a hero. She didn't tend to think much about that part of the situation. She was too focused on curing him.

Snape had his good days, which were normally quiet, and his bad. The bad days were filled with screaming, yelling, kicking, and punching. He often cried. He sometimes spoke, but his words were short and his sentences were fragments. Nothing more than the occasional, "No." or "Must save.", although he did sometimes say Harry's name. Luna had even once heard the name, "Lily" escape his lips. He had said it so softly, that she thought she'd misheard, until Harry later told her the story of Snape's affection toward his mother.

His mind tortured him. Luna could see it in the way his eyes were look from the door, to the window, and back to the door, as if walking out of the room might allow him to escape the insanity. He knew things were wrong, and it was unsettling to Luna, to know just how aware his mind was of the things around him. He had the ability to not only hear Luna, but to also obey her.

After dismissing the male healers, Luna sat down in the wooden chair beside Snape's bed. She took his hand, and then quickly let go. His hand was hot as fire, although this pale skin and sweat made him look wet and cold. It was like he was burning from the inside out. Luna knew, that this was either going to be his salvation or his death. He would either burn or sweat out the poison.

Grabbing a rag, she softly wiped off Snape's forehead, then his neck. She had thought long and hard about his temperature and the sudden change that was occurring. Five years. It took nearly five years for this effect to begin. The poison was defiantly a slow mover. Hopefully, the potion she put inside his heart would not only keep him asleep, but would also protect his heart from anymore poison reaching it. If they were lucky, the poison would have no where to go, but out, and would begin to leak from his body along with the sweat.

Luna realized about three years ago, after many failed attempts, that without a sample of this particular poison, creating an antidote would be nearly impossible.

She sat and watched the man for about two hours before she saw what she was looking for.

"Healers! Healers! Come quick!"

Along with his sweat, a cloudy pink substance was leaking from his body. Not only was it leaking from his pores, but she could also see it inside of the catheter bag that a Muggle nurse had advised her to use. She quickly put two fingers on the pulse point of his wrist and neck, while she barked orders to her healers.

"Put on gloves, I don't want any of you letting this poison touch your skin. Get test tubes and gather up the poison. I want several samples from not only his pores, but also the catheter. Somebody remove the blanket so we have better access. Johnson, take two of the tubes and go and begin to try creating an antidote. Lexis, Take another tube, take it to the lab. I want to know everything about the poison as possible."

Luna, could feel her heart beating fast, but Snape's pulse was even faster. His breathing was raspy.

"Ellis, I want a bag of normal saline from the Muggle hospital across the street. Hurry! I don't care how you get it. I'll pay them back later. Actually, get several bags, at least six. This is going to be a long and painful night. Lucas, when Ellis gets back with the saline, I need you to hook him onto an I.V. With the saline bag. We have to flush out the poison the best we can."

"Why don't we use something we have here, Madam?" The newest and smallest healer, Jamalin, asked.

"Because, this needs to be fought with something more than we have available here. Just trust me. I know what I'm doing. I'm not a Muggle, but I know enough about the Muggle medical art to know how to handle this."

Withing two minutes, Ellis was back with a box full of normal saline. A mere second after her arrival, Lucas ran into the room with an I.V. by his side.

"Give me the I.V. I'll put it in him. The pain from the poison might wake up him and he could begin to struggle, so I want several of you to be ready to hold him down if needed."

Luna found Snape's vein and pushed the I.V. Inside of him while she told Ellis how to hook up the saline bag.

"Lucas, get me some more Pectalservo potion right now. I need to put more protection around his heart just in case. His body is working as hard as it can to eject the poison, and it's going to need some help."

Lucas, a tall male healer who had worked under Luna for nearly two years, brought over the large bowl of Pectalservo and set it on the table beside Luna.

Luna grabbed a much smaller hand full than before and let it seep through Snape's chest once again.

The pink poison was becoming less and less noticeable every minute, and Snape's temperature was lowering.

Johnson ran into the room with two tubes of a dark blue liquid and handed one to Luna.

"Here. It burned right through the poison I took with me. This should be perfect. I suggest injecting it as slowly as possible. If his heart begins to pound outside of normal rate then stop the antidote and wait for his heart to regain control."

Luna nodded her head once, trusting the well known poison master.

She walked to Snape's other side and stuck a needle into his most prominent vein, then inserted the vile and pushed. The pushed the antidote so slowly that her fingers ached.

"Ellis, I want you to check the pulse on his neck and tell me when it begins to speed up to a level that feels abnormal."

"Yes, Ma'am." The dark haired witch stood still, two fingers on Snape's neck, and eyes on the clock on the wall. "Ma'am, stop. Slow down a bit. This blood flow is off the charts. I'll tell you when it slows."

Sweat was beading from Luna's forehead, and but her hand stayed steady and her eyes focused on the needle.

After several minutes of waiting Ellis spoke, "Okay, Ma'am. He's ready again."

Luna again began to push the antidote into his veins until the vile was completely empty.

"Let's wait and see how this effects him before giving him the other dose." Johnson said.

"Agreed. I believe that he sweat out a large portion of the poison, so not much more antidote should be needed, if anymore at all. Maria, go check on Lexis in the lab. Help her with anything she might need."

The tall, short hair witch moved from her place at Snape's shoulders, and left the room quickly.

After about an hour of standing, watching, and waiting, Luna heard a low groan coming from her patient, followed by a gasp, another groan, and a small squeak. Luna quickly moved to his head and leaned over him. She used her index finger and thumb to open each one of his eyes. After noting that they were not dilated, she grabbed his hand.

"Professor Snape. Snape, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand." She felt a weak amount of pressure being exchanged from his large hand to her small one. "Good. Now can you look at me?" Instead of opening his eyes, he groaned. "Too soon? Okay then, can you speak? What is your name?"

His voice was barely a whisper when he spoke, "Se . . . Severus . . . Snap . . . Snape."

Luna put her free hand over her heart and let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

"Severus," The name sounded odd on her tongue, "do you know where you are?"

"No."

"You are at St. Mungo's hospital." At this, his eyes opened.

"St Mungo's?" he asked, his voice becoming stronger.

"Yes. Do you know who I am, Professor?"

"No."

"Luna Lovegood. Remember me? I was one of your students. I was the odd blond who people called Loney Lovegood. Remember?" She hated asking, but she needed to know how much he remembered.

"Miss Lovegood? Yes. I know." His eyes stared straight up at the ceiling, obviously not really seeing anything at all.

"Can you look at me, Sir?"

His eyes shifted as he looked at her.

"How long?" he asked.

"Have you been here?" Luna questioned.

Snape nodded his head slightly.

"How about we cross that bridge when we come to it.

Snape nodded again, and with that, Luna knew he was on the fast track to recovery. It would take many more years, and they would have a lot of set backs, but he was awake, and aware of the world around him, that was more than she could have ever asked.


End file.
